Page 64 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)

Reality has been the only companion I’ve had in recent days, and for once, I welcomingly let it all settle over me on my journey through The Citadel to Valledyn.

The relinquishment of my denials and anger flows through me, warm and smooth like honey.

Light and freeing. Resolved to snatch what’s right in front of me. Keep it for myself.

Val’s absence has been a hole in The Citadel that needs to be filled. A hole left in my heart that’s been open and festering ever since I was told that Sebastian died. Because of me. A hole that’s only found relief in the presence of Val or his owl.

I can finally admit to myself that I miss him.

Just like every time we’ve been apart after the quiet tension broke between us, when Val amped up his efforts in making me see who he is. But at the manor, I had no need to miss my husband, because he was always around. Quiet, but there. Ready for me when I wanted him.

The connections I made to my owl, to Val, to Sebastian… but of course it makes sense. They were all one and the same. My heart and affections were never being shared between the three. My guilt-ridden internal war was a stalemate. Those arrows all pointed to the same pinnacle.

He was right. We are destined for each other. We could never belong to anyone else.

As if the complicated intricacies of my marriage aren’t enough to contend with, reconciling the fact that Rainah knew that he was still alive has been agonizing.

The betrayal I’m experiencing from her is just as horrible and consuming as when I learned that Val killed her.

Rainah had somehow learned that whoever had been brought in front of my father was someone else.

Beat beyond recognition in the dream Rainah sent me as proof of his death.

She knew I was a specter in my heartache, and like Val said, never corrected her mistake.

Why?

Beyond that, she lied about how familiar she was with Val.

Selise informed me that Rainah was part of their central group.

Her and Val knew each other very well. I had asked my sister multiple times about the necromancer at The Citadel, unveiled by his father when he reached a position to be honest and still protect him.

Looking back now, the way she spoke so vaguely of Val, brushing him off and rapidly changing the subject, it’s obvious that she was being purposely elusive.

Val’s promise for us to bring her back has been pulling at me harder and harder. Wanting answers from her. Wanting to use my necromancy. Especially with him. In any capacity.

We’ve already proven that we achieve greatness together.

The early days after being told he was dead, I didn’t use my necromancy at all. After years of my parents being terrified of my magic, I then was too. Frightened I might slip and someone else’s life be forfeit because of it. But time went on. And I couldn’t get him out of my head.

Unable to shake free my longing, I started seeking out the spirlinary at Thorngrove again, attempting to reach Sebastian through a mirror from the grave. But he was never gone, and therefore never answered. Not ignoring me at all.

For ten years, he was clawing his way through life until we could be together, creating something better in his wake.

No matter his actions or his motivations, he has made a difference.

Inarguable, Val’s genuine care for the people and their respect for him.

Their interactions when I forced him to shop with me is proof of that.

Together, we can change the world. Bring deos back to life and see everyone freed.

We’ve already started. Val took the weight of the world upon our shoulders, if only it meant we could be together, and I would have done the same.

I would have shed the same amount of blood to line my path back to him. To keep him safe. To call him mine.

Pure, murderous intention crawled through me when I felt that scar on his back while we kissed. The urge to protect and defend… Yes. I would slaughter anyone who I perceived as harming my husband just the same as he’s always done for me. Without thought or remorse.

My husband .

I’m still furious with Val. For all the death brought by his hands. For his lies, outright and by omission. I think in his own broken way, he thought that he was doing what was right. Rainah, Tabitha, my parents… Their memories all flow through my mind, just beyond my fingertips.

If Val hadn’t killed my parents and Rainah, would we have found ourselves in that wedding ring atop the Noctua Heartstone?

Been able to achieve the goal of Suredeis ?

Our magic bound but amplified together, creating a gift more powerful than the world has seen since the Nocturne themselves roamed the world.

I don’t know that I can ever completely forgive him. He caused too much pain. His lies hurt me too much. But I also know that I can’t live without him. And I no longer want to try.

Maybe my family died for a greater good. The few for the many. My own grief and pain isn’t worth more than anyone else’s. Certainly not when I have the capabilities to pave a new life for all with my husband at my side.

Complicated.

It’s all so very complicated.

Wonder sits over me, erasing all my ruminations while I ascend into the rooftop conservatory Blair told me Val has been haunting in solitude since he returned .

This glass belvedere holds its own brand of beauty, one that Val and I would appreciate more than most people, aside from the panoramic view of lights twinkling like a blanket of candles below us.

Even the giant Ellden clock tower in the city center could nearly be considered lovely from here, the shadow box shapes of the owl, fox, and caracal face behind the vinculum hands visible.

Plants and flowers and potted trees take up almost every inch of space. Vines climb across the glass ceiling, creating a patchwork of darkness above my head, shadowing the floor. Everything in here is dead. Completely void of life. Every bloom and stalk and leaf brown and brittle. Withered and dry.

The dusty scent of natural death is downright intoxicating.

Moonlight falls through the clear glass walls and ceilings, spotlighting a settee dropped in the middle of the waste. A bed is tucked in a corner so one might feel like they’re laying atop a cloud.

An owl hoots from just outside, a gentle encouragement to ease my anxious breaths.

The back of Val’s head is apparent from where I’ve paused at the top of the staircase. A strong arm draped over the back of the settee he’s occupying. Mingling with the flora he planted and nurtured to then let die, just so we might be able to bring it back together.

He was right. He is a romantic.

I wait for him to acknowledge my presence, to greet me. As he always does. Hearing the unique cadence of my heartbeat with his amplified shifter hearing and knowing that I’m near.

But he’s oblivious tonight. And I’m able to just stand here and stare at the back of his head unfettered, watch the way the muscles of his shoulders shift as he rolls them out.

Soak in his quiet sigh as he does so. Absorb his inky black hair that had me so entranced the first time we met.

I’m overtaken by the urge to wordlessly walk behind him and thread my fingers through that thick, dark hair. Pull his head back to look at me.

I imagine myself running that ebony wood comb through his strands in our shared room every morning, smoothing it back.

Val brings something to his mouth, a crystal tumbler filled halfway with amber liquid, and I know why he hasn’t sensed me; my heart sinks just a little further.

At our party, he only took one tiny sip of bubbly wine before discarding the glass.

Told me that alcohol dulls his senses too much and the numbness it brings was a sensation he could easily become far too friendly with.

Therefore, he rarely imbibes in alcohol.

I didn’t think too much of it at the time.

“Also—I’m a terribly cheap drunk,” he whispered in my ear to finish his explanation, making me chuckle as I imagined an easily inebriated Val.

“Blair told me you were back,” I say, unsure of how else to announce myself. My small voice is swallowed by the brittle leaves surrounding us, calling to my senses.

My heart is nothing but a hummingbird, flapping incessantly in my chest.

Val stills, pausing the trek of his drink to his mouth. Without turning, he recovers himself; takes a drink of the amber liquid; slowly places his glass on a table; turns to me.

Longing pours from him, so stout it catches my breath in my lungs, settling across my tongue. We’re quiet. Accepting the other’s presence silently. We often don’t need words to share our heavy moments and communicate how we feel.

His eyes roam all over me, as if he can’t quite believe I’m more than just an apparition.

“I thought you’d left. I…” Val trails off.

Clears his throat. “I didn’t ask about you.

When I returned.” Because I couldn’t stand to hear that you’d gone.

He doesn’t have to say it. The truth lingers between us like a noxious mist.

“You were away. For a while.” I can’t think of anything else to say. I’d worked through my mind all the elaborate words I’d offer Val when I found him. But now that I’m here, they’ve all scattered like mice.

He nods slowly, apprehension pulling at his eyes, equally unsure. “Yes.”

“Because of me?”

“No. Not because of you, ocellus .” The use of his nickname settles a jaggedness in me.

I walk across the conservatory. Val tracks my movement, like he’s watching a predator intent on devouring his heart, not trying to fight his imminent demise.

The crunch of felled, dead leaves announce my steps, rounding the settee to face my husband.

The sound of his devotion, appealing to my heart.

And I wonder if he cultivated this conservatory before or after I challenged him to learn what grand gestures would woo me on his own.